Making disruption work for humans

Split, shatter, break apart. That is the original Latin meaning of the word disruption. Even today, the word provokes fear. When my colleagues and I conceptualised this series, Fast Forward: Disruption and the Singapore Economy, of which you are now reading the final instalment, we considered technology-driven job loss to be a big threat. Just before this series was launched, Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan spoke of a time, perhaps just 15 years away, when private cars would go the way of horse carriages as driverless vehicles become the norm; and with that change, the prospect that thousands of transport workers would be thrown out of work. The fears over the rise of robots and artificial intelligence(AI) ratcheted up a notch in March, after the AI program Alpha Go defeated…